is scarce any law but what the poet prescribes to himself. When he
is full of the Deity, and possessed, as it were, by the Muses, if he
has a mind to put winged horses {25a} to his chariot, and drive some
through the waters, and others over the tops of unbending corn,
there is no offence taken. Neither, if his Jupiter {25b} hangs the
earth and sea at the end of a chain, are we afraid that it should
break and destroy us all. If he wants to extol Agamemnon, who shall
forbid his bestowing on him the head and eyes of Jupiter, the breast
of his brother Neptune, and the belt of Mars? The son of Atreus and
AErope must be a composition of all the gods; nor are Jupiter, Mars,
and Neptune sufficient, perhaps, of themselves to give us an idea of
his perfection. But if history admits any adulation of this kind,
it becomes a sort of prosaic poetry, without its numbers or
magnificence; a heap of monstrous stories, only more conspicuous by
their incredibility. He is unpardonable, therefore, who cannot
distinguish one from the other; but lays on history the paint of
poetry, its flattery, fable, and hyperbole: it is just as
ridiculous as it would be to clothe one of our robust wrestlers, who
is as hard as an oak, in fine purple, or some such meretricious
garb, and put paint {26} on his cheeks; how would such ornaments
debase and degrade him! I do not mean by this, that in history we
are not to praise sometimes, but it must be done at proper seasons,
and in a proper degree, that it may not offend the readers of future
ages; for future ages must be considered in this affair, as I shall
endeavour to prove hereafter.

Those, I must here observe, are greatly mistaken who divide history
into two parts, the useful and the agreeable; and in consequence of
it, would introduce panegyric as always delectable and entertaining
to the reader. But the division itself is false and delusive; for